Political and corporate classes in the West are finally beginning to understand that free trade is impossible with unfree countries.
It’s not as though representative government and the rule of law are making a comeback everywhere. Although it’s a bit of a mix, in Africa and Latin America democracy took a pounding in 2022. But Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, who isn’t known for deep geopolitical thoughts, got this much right earlier this week: “The world has changed a lot.” No kidding.Sign up to receive daily headline news from Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
Canada had already been excluded from the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific intelligence arrangement with Australia and the United Kingdom, and the U.S.-led 12-nation Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. So it was a bit of an event when Canada finally fell into line with the other partners of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing protocol — the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand — by barring the Chinese telecom giant Huawei from Canada’s core 5G internet connectivity infrastructure.
Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping, meanwhile, after having attempted to mollify the NATO capitals with the pretence of neutrality, is doubling down on his alliance with the Kremlin. Confirmed by his Communist Party underlings in October for a third five-year term, Xi is determined to lead the Chinese economy out of its COVID-beleaguered paralysis by toughing it out, bullying the Chinese people to the very limits of their patience, and by strengthening ties with Moscow.
Iran, meanwhile, remains in the throes of a revolution, sparked by the last-straw death of 23-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the regime’s hated morality police in September. Unlike any in the series of revolts that has shaken the Khomeinist theocracy in recent years, this time around the demand expressed explicitly in relentless and ongoing street disturbances is for a genuine democracy, for the overthrow of the regime itself.
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